Edward Mangano was 'on retainer' for Harendra Singh, feds say in arguing against throwing out conviction
Former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano leaves U.S. District Court in Central Islip on March 29, 2018. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Ex-Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano’s 2019 corruption conviction and 12-year prison sentence should be upheld by an appeals court because trial testimony and evidence proved Mangano was “on retainer” when he successfully pushed Town of Oyster Bay officials to back loans for a politically connected businessman in exchange for bribes, federal prosecutors argued in new court papers.
Mangano, 61, and his wife, Linda Mangano, 60, were convicted during a jury trial in federal court in Central Islip of taking part in a bribery scheme involving restaurateur Harendra Singh, a longtime town concessionaire who was also a decadeslong Mangano family friend. He served as the prosecution’s star witness against the couple.
The jury found the then-newly elected county executive used his position to corruptly influence town officials to provide $20 million of indirect loan guarantees for Singh — even after a lawyer for the town advised that the arrangement was illegal.
Singh testified he bribed the then-county executive with a $454,000 “no-show” job for Linda Mangano in his restaurant empire, free meals and vacations, two expensive chairs, hardwood flooring for the couple’s bedroom and a $7,300 wristwatch for one of their sons — gifts that only began flowing, prosecutors said, when Mangano assumed the power of the highest elected official in Nassau County.
WHAT TO KNOW
- Federal prosecutors argued in a newly filed brief that ex-Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano’s 2019 corruption conviction and 12-year prison sentence should be upheld by an appeals court, arguing that Mangano was “on retainer” to commit corrupt acts in exchange for bribes.
- Mangano, 61, and his wife, Linda Mangano, 60, were convicted in 2019 of taking part in a bribery scheme involving restaurateur Harendra Singh, a longtime town concessionaire who was also a decadeslong Mangano family friend, in which the then-county executive’s wife was given a “no-show” job in exchange for him taking “official action” to help Singh get loan guarantees.
- While Edward Mangano’s lawyer has argued for a new trial based, in part, on precedents set in other political corruption cases, federal prosecutors argued those did not impact Mangano’s conviction.
“There can be no doubt [Edward] Mangano understood from the inception of the quid pro quo found by the jury that he was to take action and cause others to take action regarding the TOB’s indirect guarantee of Singh’s loans through amendments to the concession agreements,” wrote federal prosecutors in a 233-page brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Mirabile, who prosecuted the Manganos during two lengthy trials, helped author the brief.
“Indeed, Mangano orchestrated the ultimate outcome — bringing the parties together, pressuring [former Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John] Venditto to overrule [lawyers for the town], and enlisting the services of other lawyers to find a way to get the loans done for Singh, with the Town’s backing," the papers said.
Venditto was acquitted of all charges in the 2018 trial, in which the judge declared a mistrial when the jury couldn’t decide on the charges against the Manganos. He later pleaded guilty in state court to corruption charges. He died in 2020.
In an appeal of the Manganos’ convictions filed last year, Edward Mangano’s lawyer, Kevin Keating, argued that other court decisions — including the case of the late Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose corruption conviction was partially vacated on appeal — had narrowed the legal definition of “official action” under the federal bribery statute and therefore his client’s conviction should be overturned.
But prosecutors argued in their brief that Mangano had committed bribery under the “as-opportunities-arise” theory, being “on retainer” for Singh’s needs — theories of the crime that had been upheld by the court previously. They detailed how the timeline of the actions Mangano took to further the scheme, coincided with the actions taken by Oyster Bay Town officials, and the flow of bribes from Singh to the Manganos.
“Mangano was on retainer, available to Singh in the event that Singh needed Mangano to take official action to benefit Singh’s businesses in Nassau County,” federal prosecutors wrote. “Nothing in Silver II,” prosecutors wrote, referring to the earlier appeals court decision in the Silver case, “overrules or invalidates this theory of liability.”
Keating did not respond to a message Thursday.
Mangano is serving his 12-year sentence at a federal prison in Massachusetts. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery, federal program bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, honest services wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice
Linda Mangano was sentenced to 15 months in prison for her conviction on conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and two counts of lying to the FBI in connection with her "no show" job. She was released from a federal prison in Connecticut just five months into her sentence and is scheduled to be released from home confinement in August, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Singh, who pleaded guilty to several bribery and fraud charges in connection with the scheme, is scheduled to be sentenced July 11.
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.